Judith Shapiro econtutorlse.ac.uk

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Judith Shapiroecon-tutor_at_lse.ac.uk

• UK Undergraduate Economics Research
• Can we encourage it better nationally?
• Could this pay off (for most or all)?
• Cardiff
• 10 September 2009

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Origin of Paper is in EnvySome activities the
other side of Atlantic

• Many UROPs and Summer Programmes local
• Local but consider how to encourage
• Reading, Warwick, Sussex, Cambridge (not
  economics), others?
• Stanford 2009 (w/ LSE comparison)
• Carroll Round Conference Georgetown
• Atlantic Economic Association and Journal
• Best Undergraduate Paper Competition

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Fundamental EN resources

• Peter Smith, The Undergraduate Dissertation in
  Economics a practical guide chapter in The
  Handbook for Economics Lecturers
• also
• Kim McGoldrick, Undergraduate Research in
  Economics (also Handbook chapter)
• Added idea today to encourage further and go
  beyond dissertation, partly ( not only) to
  inspire students about economics as a career

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Evidence base needs reinforcement

• Example see American Economic Review, Volume 95,
  No 2, Ronald G. Ehrenburg, involving
  Undergraduates in Research to Encourage Them to
  Undertake PhD Study in Economics
• Research Time-Consuming for Students and Academic
  Staff. Given High Opportunity Costs we should be
  seeking a stronger evidence base. (this is not to
  question ruling priors quite the reverse!)

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Possibilities to consider

• Undergraduate Journal
• Online only or also some hard copy? Editors?
• Undergraduate Working Paper Series
• Online and/or PDF with cover and ISSN
• Who/how much/ to edit
• (Annual) Conference
• Parameters when, scope, how organised?
• Competition, even Atlantic Econ Jnl analogue

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Highly selective case study

• Aid and Public Finance A Missing Link? will be
  one of four Best Undergraduate Paper
  international finalists at Atlantic Economic
  Association October conference in Boston.
  (Cambridge has another of the finalists).
• Previously atop ward winners, Georgetown
  Universitys April Carroll Round conference .
• Unusal outcome, but indicates possibilities,
  arguably across a range of UK institutions.
• Grew out of absolutely voluntary weekly
  Undergraduate Research Workshop at LSE

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TRUE-type resources needed

• Hardest of all how to do research
• Goldilocks problem Undergraduate guides too
  vague, PhD suggestions too daunting
• Examples of what I Recommend
• John Creedy, Starting Research The Australian
  Economic Review
• Don Davis Ph.D. Thesis Research Where do I
  Start? Columbia
• Hal Varian, How to Build an Economic Model in
  Your Spare Time for theory
• Angrist et al informal how I do for econometrics

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Anders Jensen

• Presentation
• Summer Research Workshop
• July 2009

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Background motivation

• Summer internship at Chartered Institute for
  Public Finance and Accountancy
• Over the summer, read some papers got some
  first opinions on a possible research question
  link between public finance and foreign aid
• ? In my case, research question emerged not from
  prior economic knowledge, but from simple
  curiosity I had no academic background in this
  area

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Learning process (I)

• Michaelmas Term
• 1st step find the data! Have a look to see if
  the big picture fits my ideas
• World Bank, IMF, Penn tables, UN Statistics, ICRG
  
• Get help from the librarians they are very
  friendly, and very competent
• 2nd step find the relevant literature
• To make sure the question hadnt already been
  answered
• And, to find some benchmark papers (this was a
  great help to me)
• 3rd step presenting in the Research workshop
  useful and a great learning experience

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Learning process (II)

• End of Michaelmas/beginning Lent
• 1) Question what format do I want this piece of
  research to take? How far am I willing to go?
  (that is, how much time am I willing to
  dedicate?)
• 2) Answer Carroll Round (will come back to
  this), helpful to work towards a deadline
  exogenously imposed upon us
• 3) By then, project became teamwork (Markus
  Gstoettner) previously sceptic of working with
  someone else, am now convinced it can be a great
  advantage
• Can do twice as much in same amount of time!
• Lonely nights in the library mutually motivating

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Output (I)

• End of Lent submitted unfinished research to
  Carroll Round
• Beginning of April holidays took 5 days with
  Markus to finalise the paper

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Output (II)

• 1) Carroll Round
• Undergraduate competition, hosted by Georgetown
  University
• Students from all over the world
• Organised like a seminar formal presentations
  reviewed by professor and students, discussions
• Enriching experience
• Helpful feedback concerning our paper
• Meet other undergrads driven by same interests
• Get to travel! Won a book signed by Taleb (!)
• 2) Atlantic Economic Journal undergraduate
  competition
• -paper submitted
• -if chosen, presentation at Annual conference in
  Boston in October
• -possibility of publishing in academic journal

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Advice

• It really can be done
• Did not have any particular knowledge in the area
  of research learn as you go along
• Took up some consequent time, but manageable
  (motivation-driven)
• Mutual feedback between 2nd year academics
  (Econometrics, Macro) and this ongoing project